WordPress

Website Hosting and HPPTS Options

Google now has the HTTPS website URL as their favorite in their search results

Last year they already mentioned that they will identify https sites as save in Chrome (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/https-required-collecting-sensitive-information-chrome-january-2017/182342/). And you can see for yourself that the Lock icon and the save mark ar on this website.

I recently checked the results for a common search like “build a website” and found that the first 10 results all show https websites.

The first website without https showed up on the 14th spot, all the others on page 2 are also https sites.

Moving from HTTP to HTTPS

Important!!

Always backup your website, including database before you start.
Remember, for Google, this is a site move! So if not done correctly you might lose traffic.

Getting from HTTP to HTTPS need to be supported by your hosting company.

You can buy a full SSL certificate for your domain, and if you have an e-commerce store that should be your first choice.

For a standard website or blog like this one, a Free LetsEncrypt option will do just fine.

With the Siteground Hosting company where this site runs, they support both options.

It's also really easy to get a LetsEncrypt certificate. Just go to your Hosting Cpanel en click on Let's Encrypt.

You then get a list of your domains that already have a certificate and you get a selection box where you select the domain and request a certificate.

Wait a couple of seconds to let the process complete and you are done with this part.

Now you need to login to your Content Management System and change the base URL from HTTP to HTTPS.

I use WordPress on this site, so for me, it meant going to Setting -> General and change the URL to HTTPS and re-login.

But with the image and other links on the website still pointing to http:// resources you don't get a full save icon, its mixed content.

For WordPress there is a plugin called Really Simple SSL that fixes this, it also makes sure that the http:// links get redirected to the https:// version.

Something that is really important for Google and your visitors.

If you want to take it a step further, get the Pro version of Really Simple SSL, as that works it's magic to get HSTS.

I don't have the Pro version on this website, but I do use it on my dutch WordPress Magazine website and it has a 100% secure rating on the Dutch Internet.nl website making it into the Hall of Fame.

Doing a basic check on this site via https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ gives me an A rating.

So to keep your rating and stay in the Google search results, move your site from HTTP to HTTPS.

If your hosting company does not have an option like Let's Encrypt, ask them if and when they will implement it.

If you don't get it or if you are not getting a clear answer, you might want to consider moving your website to a new hosting provider like SiteGround.com, I did and I am very happy that I did!

Moving from Pathos-Seo.com to DIYSiteSeo.com

Filed Under: Planning your Website

Today I am working on consolidating old websites into new ones as part of my new year's resolution. For 2017 I want to simplify my online presence by reducing the number of sites I manage.

So I am letting go of Pathos-seo.com in favor of DIYSiteSeo.com. This last domain is not as old as Pathos, but I think it's a better fit for where I want to go.

Pathos-seo.com was heavily focused on Joomla! SEO. Joomla! is not my most use CMS anymore since WordPress has progressed into the CMS area.

Pathos was registered in 2006. Now, 10 years later, I feel it's good to let go and take only the best parts with me to this new site.

Moving to a new domain

Moving to a new domain is like moving to a new house. Only thing is that it is fully digital so it's not as heavy to lift.

Steps taken:

Export all database content like posts, pages and links from one WordPress site via the Tools ->Export function,
Download the wp-content folder with all plugins and images via FTP to my local drive,
Import posts, pages, links, etc into the new site with the import plugin from WordPress,
Upload content of wp-content via FTP to the new site,
Change domain and site pointers in the new website from old to the new domain via a Search and Replace Plugin,
Update media catalog via Media from FTP plugin,
Check permalinks to work between old and new site,
Setup domain redirects from the old to the new domain and run checks again.

Next steps after the domain move

After the steps mentioned above and the redirects work it's time to take the next steps.

Changing WordPress Theme

For me, that means changing to a new WordPress theme for which I choose a Genesis Framework Child Theme called Simple Pro Theme.

It's a very clean theme that will keep the focus on the content of articles I wrote and will be writing.

As part of that focus, you will also see a lot less advertising banners and more links instead, those can and will be affiliate links if suitable.

Cleaning Up House

I am also sifting through the old articles seeing if they have become obsolete or need updates in the content of image-wise.

This house cleaning will take me a couple of days.

It's like unpacking your moving boxes and looking where to place your items in your new house.

In real life, you would of course thrown away old stuff before you move, but in this digital world, you can work the other way around.

While I go through the old articles I also need to create new featured images for them. The new theme looks better with larger width images and those are also used as thumbnails for related posts.

So besides the move, I also need to do some site renovation cleaning and making sure I correct any SEO errors.

As another part of this move, I will make it even more mobile-friendly with this new theme and by setting up AMP pages.

WordPress 3 for Business Bloggers a Book Review

Filed Under: Seo Basics, WordPress Books

Packt Publishers is very good when it comes to identifying great topics for their business and finding people who can write in a clear and simple way. In this new book, WordPress 3 for Business Bloggers by Paul Thewlis brings you the knowledge to start the process of blogging for any purpose, not just business.

Here is a short overview of the chapters so you can see what is covered in this book.

Chapter 1: A Blog Less Ordinary—What Makes a Great Blog?
Chapter 2: Introducing our Case Study—WPBizGuru
Chapter 3: Designing your Blog
Chapter 4: Images and Videos
Chapter 5: Content is King
Chapter 6: Search Engine Optimization
Chapter 7: Supercharged Promotion
Chapter 8: Connecting with the Blogosphere
Chapter 9: Analyzing your Blog Stats
Chapter 10: Monetizing your Blog
Chapter 11: Managing Growth

WPBizGuru a Case Study

After the first introduction of some great WordPress blogs and how blogs can be used Paul goes into a case study showcasing a new site on http://blog.wpbizguru.com/

In the following chapters, he takes you from the basics of the design and changes to match your own ideas (don't get scared by the coding! It is not that hard..) up to how to write your content and use images and video in your posts.

What I really like in these first chapters is the way he helps you with ideas on how to create a blogging plan and how to implement is focusing on the real purpose of your blog/website.

The following chapters are about how to get traffic to your blog, how to measure that traffic, and what to do with it.

The monetizing chapter is a bit limited on how to get the most of your blog traffic but is surely a start in the right direction. Managing growth is not only about keeping the performance of your site but also about keeping up with comments and reducing spam in your blog.

WordPress Plugins

Paul mentions several plugins in his book that I think are very good, however, there are three plugins he uses that I don't use anymore for several reasons:

Akismet = replaced by Growmap Anti Spam Plugin (I use the premium version which comes with Commentluv) because it works better and the free version is well.. free (Akismet is not free in many cases https://akismet.com/signup/)
Super Cache = replaced by Hyper Cache if you want it simple or W3 Total Cache for the more techies among us.
All-in-One-SEO = replaced WordPress SEO by Yoast, no not because he is Dutch like me, but because the plugin just works better and is also free (AIOSEO has a premium version)

Conclusion

WordPress 3 for Business Bloggers is not just for Business bloggers, it is a great starting point for any WordPress blog or website you want to set up. Like I mentioned before I really liked the Blogging plan layout and the focus on the purpose of your blog/website.

One thing I missed was how to secure your blog against hackers, so I will write a blog post on that next because you really need to secure your site. The Backup and restore sections of the book are mandatory for making sure you can get your blog back fast.

All in all, a great starting point for any new WordPress website owner that wants his or her website to succeed.

How to Start A WordPress Website Consolidation Project

Filed Under: WordPress

I created lots of websites during the past twelve years working with Joomla and WordPress.

The problem was that I not only created websites for clients but also for myself leaving me with a whole lot of sites to manage.

So this year I wanted to scale down on the number of sites to manage by consolidating different sites into one big site. This is that new website: https://www.websitebeginnersguide.com

Which Sites to Consolidate?

Taking that decision is one thing, getting into action is something completely different.

First off all I needed to determine which sites would be good candidates to move to a different domain and if it was possible to do so with a minimal loss in Google rankings.

When the whole project is done, it should even improve on the rankings and the number of visitors, creating a website that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Criteria to take into account:

Website topic should match the purpose of the new domain
Permalinks structure should also be the same to be able to do a 301 redirect form the old website
Export and import of data should be easily doable
Number of RSS feed subscribers

For me that meant that the first sites to consolidate where:

www.herbertvandinther.com
www.pathosseoblog.com
Others to follow

Setting the First Steps

First off all I needed to setup the new website with the same CMS, in this case WordPress.

Decide on the Layout / design of the site. I now use Genesis with the News Pro theme from StudioPress. Not cheap, even for a premium theme, but well worth every dollar I spend on it.

After WordPress basic installation was done, I checked the common plugin usage in both sites and make sure the permalinks settings were identical.

The main reason for this was that it is a lot easier to do a complete site redirect than creating a lot of single 301 redirect rules per site.

The actual moves were done by creating a WordPress export file from the old sites and import them into the new one. If you want to do the same, make sure you check the box to import the attachments as well, that saves time and prevents some image link problems.

Search and Replace Old stuff and General Housekeeping

Some of the things I did after the migrations

Using this plugin to change the URLs of the images and old links form http://pathosseoblog.com/ with the correct new uploads path.
Check Old comments to see if there is nothing left that point to the migrated domains.
Used Ajax Thumbnail Rebuild for resizing the images for use on archives and layout options.
Update the Contact form
Set SEO Options -> I was not sure on using a Plugin or the Genesis SEO Theme settings. I decided to go the Genesis SEO options to see if that would work out better than WordPress SEO. Update: WordPress SEO by Yoast is now the main SEO function for this site.
Installed the Google sitemap.xml plugin to get the standard xml file to put into my Webmaster Tools account. Update: Sitemap.xml is now handled by WordPress SEO Plugin.
Deleted the two other site entries in Webmaster tools. You could do better to just inform Google webmaster tools that the site has moved.
Set up a new Subscribe widget
Cleaned out old and duplicate post categories

Other this to look out for in the coming weeks:

Check the error logs for 404 errors that need to be addressed
Check Stats and Tools to find other problems that might occur
Decide what other domain could be consolidation candidates
Write new articles and guides especially for WordPress and Joomla Beginners
Regain focus and have fun!

WordPress Permalinks Optimal settings

Filed Under: WordPress SEO

Basic On-Page WordPress Search Engine Optimization always starts with Search Engine Friendly URLs.

You can set these via the Permalinks option in your WordPress Administration Panel.
But be aware that for these setting to work, you need to be on an Apache Web server that has Mod_Rewrite active and working!

If you are on windows based hosting package, there is one way to achieve SEF URLs, and you don't have settle for the standard ?p=123 produced by WordPress.

The easy way

The easiest way the get a good working .htaccess file is this:

Upload an empty file called htaccess.txt to the root of your WordPress installation directory.
Set the permissions to 707 which means writable by system and public.
Rename the file to .htaccess
Go into your admin panel and choose your preferred URL setting.
Save the settings and check if you get the URLs you want.
Go back to the permission settings (normally via FTP) and set the access to 404 to make is as secure as possible.

WordPress Permalinks Options

There were several options standard in WordPress before WP version 3.x.
Here is my preferred choice at that time in the custom structure /%postname% .html

That means you get post URLs that incorporate the post title and ends with .html

Be aware that this works with Posts only, page URLs are created with the title, without an extension.

So if you want the same URL for your posts as for your pages, you should set the option to /%postname%/ which is now the Post name option!

That option is now my standard choice as it creates a good permalink as well as performs well in load times.

Now you have a URL like www.example.com/post-title and www.example.com/page-title

WordPress 3.x Optimized Permalinks Standard

As for the new version of WP 2.3 and up there are a lot fewer problems with duplicate content problems that you might have before since Automattic made it a lot better picking up the URLs for each of the posts.

With the latest versions of WordPress, there is an option called Post name which is the best you can use. All other permalinks option will redirect to this one if you set it.

If you set that option, WordPress will automatically fill the custom field with /%postname%/ so don't worry about that.

Note! Pick your choice of permalinks and stick to it! Changing it after your indexed means you have to do a lot of 301 redirects.

Pretty WordPress Permalinks on Windows Servers

You can get Permalinks on a Windows-based server and even on your own local development computer.

Instead of the Post name option, you have to use the Custom Structure with /index.php/%postname%/

Or ask your hosting provider if they have a server with one of these options:

Microsoft IIS 7+ web server with the URL Rewrite 1.1+ module and PHP 5 running as FastCGI
Microsoft IIS 6+ using ASAPI_Rewrite

If so ask them if they can move your site to one of those servers so you can use Permalinks without the index.php option.

Want to know more about all the other permalink options? Read more on http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization for Your Website

Filed Under: Seo Basics

If you want your website to perform well in the search engine results, you have two options:

Pay a high fee to a professional search engine optimizer
Learn how to do it yourself for free

As you might have seen by the domain name and title, this is where you will find information for the second option, do it yourself!

I am not going to tell you that it is easy or that it is not going to cost you any money. I will tell you that if you do it the right way, you will see the benefits and with every step, you take it will get easier.

So what topics this site going to target?

SEO Topics covered

Basic SEO like onsite improvements,
SEO Tips that you can use directly on your site,
SEO tools that help you to take that extra step,
Cms information to improve their SEO capabilities,
SEO News if there are interesting developments,
and SEO Articles to give you more in-depth knowledge about certain topics.

Topics NOT covered:

Google Adwords because we are targeting organic results here,
Search engine marketing because it is such a broad subject that it would divert you from your primary focus,
Social networks, although we will point you to some of them when the time is ripe to do so,
Link Directories and Link Exchange programs, because I think they don't work for SEO anymore like they used to.

So, now we have that clear, lets start…

Do It Yourself Site Search Engine Optimization

No. 1 on Google and No Clicks

Filed Under: SEO, WordPress

In the last few months I have been moving some websites from subdomains to new domains and sometimes changing there apperance.
Here is what happened on one of them…

The site was number One on Google for a long tail keywords phrase and it site was getting some nice traffic from this term.

After the move from its sub-domain life and going into its own domain I changed the template to a more suitable one and optimized the site to get more traffic.

One thing I did was the craft the Home page title so it would get even more traffic and it worked out nicely. The new theme was search engine optimized and I did not feel like I needed to do anything about it…

As I said, the site had a No. 1 position on Google, but after I wrote a new post on this site this happened to the traffic.

Once I noticed the drop in traffic I checked Google and saw the site was still No. 1 but not with the title of the homepage anymore.

The title shown by Google was the title of the last post and no longer this traffic attracting title of the Homepage!
This title was not really on topic of the search term so nobody clicked on it to check out the site!

I checked the theme and changed the header option to make sure I got the Homepage title back into place.

Bringing it Back on Track

So everything is technically set back to how it should be, and now it was time to get Google's spider to re-index the site so the homepage title was back where it belonged.

Writing a new post that to update the site did the trick and the site was back in a few days.

All looked good, but a day later there was again this drop in traffic. Now I can explain the first drop, then the recovery but not the second drop.

The only thing I can think of was the short time upgrade followed by something Google might do like switching back for some time serving search engine cached indexes if they upgrade the primary index.
If you have another explanation, I would love to here it!

After this initial drop and kick back the site is now doing well, thank you for asking.
It is still growing in traffic.

Conclusion: Keep track of your site after you do a mayor upgrade like changing themes or even system upgrades.
The thing you need to watch closely is that the so carefully crafted title of you homepage is still the same so it will keep getting you the traffic. Especially it you have the No. 1 position on Google that you wanted to get.

Why Joomla, WordPress and Drupal all Fail at Search Engine Optimization

Filed Under: SEO

Yes, that is right, they all fail at Search Engine Optimization…

I have been reading several new posts about how well WordPress is doing SEO compared to Joomla! and how good Drupal is in SEO compared to WordPress and….well, you get the general idea.

it seems that every time people are defending their choice to use a certian Content management system. Which is a good thing, you can show people the reasons why you love the system(s) that you use.

We all do, we all like the system of our choice, whether it is WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, Modx, Typo3, etc,etc. They are all great open source content management systems.

The Big Three, WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal.

I have written before how Search Engine Friendly WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal can be, but they don't do SEO…, YOU do SEO…

That is right, they don't do anything else then giving you the tools to get your website ready for higher rankings and better performance in the search engines!

You are the deciding factor in how well search engine optimization is done. You and the webmaster and content writers of your website.

None of the content management systems will come up to you and say, here is a great keyword rich title for your post. None of them will provide you with the keyword rich quality content that attracts visitors and back-links.

That is all up to you.

None of these content management systems will give you the right structure and internal linking ideas for the content of your site based on relevant keywords and none of them will do that keyword research for you.

They are just what they say the are, content management systems. You can use them for building websites, for building blogs, for building community's, but they still remain content management systems.

They are the engines that drive your website and/or Blog, but you have to work with them to get a really search engine optimized website.

The deciding factor for great search engine optimization

It is up to you to get the most out of the system of your choice and you will see that you can do it!

Either with WordPress, Joomla! or Drupal, or any other system, you have the knowledge and the ideas to get better rankings for you site.

You know your system of choice and you are the engineer that knows how to fire up that engine to drive it up to the best possible spot in the search engine results pages!

So don't blame or praise a website building engine for getting search engine optimization done right, praise yourself for doing a job well done.

The Difference between WordPress Pages and Posts

Filed Under: Seo Basics, WordPress Manual

If you login to WordPress you have two big options in your administration dashboard: “Write a new page” and “Write a new post“.

The thing here is that in version 2.6. of WordPress the order of those two changed, first it was the Post and then the Page…
Looks like WordPress is heading to a more CMS Like software, most currently if we look at the new 2.7 Dashboard.

But one thing remains, Pages and Posts…

It is simply a matter of knowing what to use for what purpose.

WordPress Posts

Posts are really what makes WordPress so great for Blogging, Post will be presented in a time-line.
This means that the latest post will show up first before the rest of the Blog entries.

Posts can also be attached to categories, pages can't (unless we use a special Plugin)

In the archive pages there will be Posts that are labeled to belong to those Category or Tag.
You can also have Monthly archives and even Author Archives, but the are always in a Chronological order.

WordPress Pages

Pages are more static and that means you can use them any way you want to structure your WordPress website.
Pages are the way to go if you want to Build a Static WordPress website

There is a great Plugin called My Page Order that can help order your pages.
Pages can also be placed as a subpage to a Main page.

Managing page orders is with this Plugin as simple as dragging and dropping, but don't forget the hit save afterwards…

Weblog engines reviewed by Smashing magazine

Filed Under: Blogging, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress

Yet another great post from Smashing Magazine, this time Glen Stansberry wrote post reviewing of 10 Weblog Engines among them WordPress, Drupal and Joomla!

Af course they included MovableType and ExpressionEngine which I also tried but didn't like that much.

Looking and writing about the following aspects of each engine:

Programming language.
What features you’ll need.
The size of the software’s community.
The age of the software.
If you are planning on extending the Blog.

For Programming language my favorite is PHP, Like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla! (and Typo3)
Features are within the core or easily integrated with Extensions like Components, Plugins and/or Modules.
Both these Blogging platforms have very good community to support you, although Joomla! is the biggest at this moment.
Age for me is really not much of an issue but for you looking at the first release dates…
WordPress started in 2003, Drupal in 2001 and Joomla! in 2005 as a fork from Mambo that was build from 2000 (Open source Dual license in 2001)
Extending your "Blog" is really easy with all the packages I favor.

Focus on Blogging

But when it comes to Blogging, WordPress works best for me and in the Smashing magazine post Glen wrote one simple statement under Drupal and extend it later on to Joomla!
"it’s not just blogging software. Drupal is community software. "
Which is exactly how I see it…
You can use Joomla! for Blogging and with Drupal you can do the same thing, but I just don't like the Drupal control panel that much to write blogposts.

One other great article comparing Drupal and Joomla mentioned in the post is from Steve (Hope you get a lot of traffic from this Smashing magazine article!) over at Alledia on Joomla and Drupal.(Needs an Update since the release of Joomla 1,5 ;-)

All in all, a nice overview of the Blogging Engine landscape of today from Smashing Magazines, and for me its good to see that Joomla now is also considered a Blogging Platform although still with some limitations.
But those limitations can be overcome with the right setting and Blogging Components for Joomla.

Website Hosting and HPPTS Options

Moving from HTTP to HTTPS

Important!!

Moving from Pathos-Seo.com to DIYSiteSeo.com

Moving to a new domain